While there were a certain percentage of immigrants who left everything
and everyone they knew to strike off into an uncertain, harsh, often
dangerous, uncomfortable future thousands of miles away, I have to believe
they were the minority. So what were their motivations? We are all aware
of the Irish escaping the Potato Famine (or the Brits not allowing enough
food to feed the folks who grew it). And certainly there were those who
wanted to escape wars and such. But for the most part, those who were not
forced (the narrow group that Honor seems to be addressing one racial
component of) were, to put it bluntly, misfits, miscreants, and
malcontents. This is not putting a value judgement on why they fit into
this catagory, nor is it saying that they were not worthy of finding a
home of their own on this continent (even at the cost of those who
possessed the land before them).

It does point to the importance of the frontier in shaping America (as
Frederick Jackson Turner pointed out a hundred years ago). And it points
out the importance of corn. This gift of the Native American is so
productive that it allowed anyone who was fed up with 'civilization' to
strike out with a bag of seed corn with a reasonable expectation that they
would be able to grow enough food to survive. This is part of the search
for personal freedom and liberty that has defined the American political
and value system.

My two cents.
Wayne Miller


On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Honor Conklin wrote:

>     This is thought provoking.  One must take into account who is making the statements.  Similar statements can be found in the Missionary Journal of New York State, 1803, written by Timothy Mather Cooley (a Mather descendant) as he made his way across northern NYS where people were without ministers and urban, or even village, level education.
>    The key points I took from Edward Ball's Slaves in the Family is that  Africans sold Africans to European and American slave traders for qualities that weren't desirable - including enemy tribal membership, thievery, adultery, etc,. but who also possessed attributes that the slave owners found worthwhile to make an investment in - physical stamina, intelligence, hard working.
>
> Honor Conklin
>
> >>> [log in to unmask] 07/11/00 03:11AM >>>
> In various accounts of early American settlements and frontier communities I've read descriptions of  the substantial numbers of  their residnets that were criminals, n'er-do-wells, drunkards, loafers and othe drags on society .  But these accounts are only anecdotal.
>
> I wondered if many of these miscreants were the result of Great Britain dumping its unwanted in the colonies, as they exported criminals to Australia. My question is, could anyone direct me to studies of the number of lawbreakers and/or convicted criminals that were sent from the British Isles and Ireland ( or from any other nation, such as France, if that were the case) to the American colonies?
>
>  [I understand, of course, that many emigrants from England labeled as criminals were only financial failures from debtors' prisons, or political revolutionaries, such as those from Ireland and Scotland].
>
>                                                                William Ringle
>

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Wayne L. Miller                         Special Collections Librarian
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        "I wonder what will happen today!"  -Maggie Muggins-
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